Plays

The Masquerade of Henry IV

OVERVIEW

Playwright

Adapted / Translated From

Author Notes

Translated from Luigi Pirandello's Original Play.

Setting

The action takes place in a solitary villa in Umbria, Italy. Time, the present.

Synopsis

An exploration of how actors play a part. Four actors arrive, one of them new, to play the part of attendants to Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Unfortunately, the new one has assumed that the ruler is Henry IV of France, and so has read up and assumed the part of a French lord five centuries later. The four of them turn out to be attendants not, as initially seems, in a play about the Emperor, but to a rich Count who lapsed into madness following an injury received during a pageant in which he was playing Henry IV.